


same side different coin

by alexanderlightweight



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Wings, BAMF Alec Lightwood, Canon-Typical Violence, Claiming, Dark Magnus Bane, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Magic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possessive Magnus Bane, Prince of Hell Magnus Bane
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:07:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29977125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanderlightweight/pseuds/alexanderlightweight
Summary: When Alec told the Clave he would rather face Edom than marry a woman, he didn't expect it to truly be his fate.In the end though, a death well earned is better than a life spent living a lie.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 11
Kudos: 151





	same side different coin

**Author's Note:**

> was betaed by Saeth of [alxndrlightwoods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alxndrlightwoods/pseuds/alxndrlightwoods)

Edom is cold.

Alec didn’t expect that.

A harsh, stark wind chases him, nipping at his cheeks and stinging his eyes. It forces him to keep his wings tucked tightly to his body. The gold and white of them are covered in dust and grime. 

Alec doesn’t want to think about how he’s going to possibly ever get them clean — that would imply he thinks he will survive this, and he doesn’t. 

He presses forward, struggling to keep the snarl caught in his throat from springing free.

He’s exhausted and every breath is a battle. He has no air to waste on futile protests, no matter how desperately he wants to scream.

A gust of wind snags his wing and the scream is snatched from his mouth. He struggles desperately to regain his footing, his wings pressed so tightly to his back that he feels as though they’ve disappeared into his skin.

_ — he wishes they would — _

There are no landmarks thus far in Edom.

Nothing but sand and rock and more sand.

He hates it with the vivid passion born from desolation and drags his feet through another foot of hard, gritty sand. 

The sand and wind have long since obscured his vision, so the large body of a fast moving demon catches him unaware. The blow flings him and his wings part on instinct, pressing against the wind to stabilize him.

It’s a fight, but one he wins for the moment. His bow is in hand, arrow notched and released even before he lands and another two leave his weapon. His bowstring sings an angels chorus as his blessed arrows fly through the air and he ducks the swipe of a large tail. 

His ambusher lies dead, but it is not the only enemy and Alec sucks in a breath and notches another arrow. He is surrounded, and in Edom, even the sky is his enemy. 

He closes his eyes. Lets the demonic energy of Edom pass through and over him. He’s not his strongest. It is impossible to be strong in Edom when he is nephilim born and bred but he is a warrior by choice and the hard training of pushing himself to his limits and beyond, not by birth alone.

He hears the whistle of a demon’s nasally scream breach the roar of the wind and he turns. Adamas lights in his hand, the blinding blue-white of his blade a light he can see and feel even though his eyelids.

It comforts him, enough that while he can’t manage a full attack, he has just enough energy to parry a blow. Adamas crashes against the horn of a demon and he opens his eyes in time to see his blade flicker, it’s power diminished.

He yells. A hoarse cry of defiance and severs the demon’s horn. 

It doesn’t fall, but Alec’s blade does.

He ducks and rolls, wings tucking into him to make him a smaller target and flaring out again to boost him forward. His hands blister from ichor as he raises the horn and pierces the demon with its own appendage. It’s scream threatens to deafen him and Alec yells back. He will not be subdued. 

The wounds on his hand burn, but he closes his eyes and centers himself around the pain. Reforges himself until it becomes but a sting to sharpen his edge with. 

His blade is a dead weight in the sand and he curses it. Revokes the name that powered it. He takes two arrows from his quiver instead, the adamas a cool brand against his wounded palms and re-centers himself. 

He will win this fight and the next, he is sure of that at least. 

After that well, only time and his own abilities will determine his fate.

Time passes, in an excruciatingly impossible way to measure. He fights and he bleeds and he wins, if only by the value that he remains alive.

_ He’s exhausted. _

The fight that lingers in him is now by pure stubbornness alone. Somehow, he’d managed something of a transformation and now he pauses, one knee on the ground and teeth bared in a snarl. 

He is surrounded.

His bloody wings shroud him in a mocking victory. A dying Angel of Death. 

Dripping ichor, covered with grit and soaked with his own blood he flares his wings defiantly. The tips are razor sharp, glinting and partially transformed into their adamas form. It’s a last effort of survival. One he’d been warned he wouldn’t be able to accomplish, and one he accomplished anyway. If this is how he dies, then Alec will make it a fight to remember. He may die. His body may be torn apart by demons, his soul forever trapped in Edom as scavengers ravage him until even his bones are cracked apart for their marrow. Until everything that he is, is nothing more than dust, but he will be remembered. If even only by the demons who even now, hesitate to attack him. They might not understand, but by now every demon in Edom has the instinct to be wary of him.

For Alec, that is enough. It has to be.

The fight it a blur. He kills more demons than he takes injuries and ichor fills his mouth as often as blood does. Everything is raw and painful and he falls to the ground, down onto his knees with one of his arrows to keep his balance. There is a lull, as the demons seem to be deciding weather to attack and risk injury but kill him, or wait until he succumbs to his injuries and then feast.

Then silence falls across the hoard of demons. Their strange noises cease and the demons that had begun to bravely advance on him skitter away. The sun is blotted out for a moment and then the joyously familiar sound of feathers gliding through air break the silence.

The shadow of his rescuer’s wings passes over him, the enormity of them stretching across him and his own feathers fluff up in response. 

He’s on his back, neck bared and wings raised but spread wide, at the others mercy. 

A hand reaches out and Alec’s wings shudder as adamas shafts melt into soft feathers. His savior hesitates but for a breath before fingers press deep into his plumage and Alec groans at how sinfully good it feels, to be treated so softly.

Gold eyes stare down at him and he luxuriates in the weighted shadow of a wingspan that dwarfs his own, protecting him from the elements. 

Dark feathers blot out the harsh sun of Edom and for the first time since his descent, his eyes don’t hurt to be open. 

He’s glad, because his savior is not only the most welcome sight in all of Edom, he’s also the most beautiful one in any dimension Alec’s traveled.

The curl of something dark peeks from a carelessly unbuttoned shirts. Alec can’t make out what it is, but it’s undoubtedly a rune, marking the man as a nephilim even if his wings weren’t already a giveaway. And while Alec is suspicious by nature, there is no denying that this man saved him. At the very least, Alec owes him a life debt.

“Who on earth let such a sweet, fierce little angel roam Edom unattended.” Is said. Alec doesn’t think it’s a question, but he still tries to provide an answer but his throat is sore and swollen and words become a croak as he tries to utter them.

“Hush pretty thing,” he’s told and his wings go lax, feathers puffing up in submission as the man kneels above him. Fingers press against his mouth, spreading a cool dampness against his cracked lips and Alec opens his mouth, greedy for moisture as he suckles at them. 

There’s a surprised, almost startled noise. The taste is strange but welcome. Not ichor or blood. More like petrichor. It tastes like he imagines lightning does and his tongue tingles, even as the raw pain fades. 

“Be good,” he’s told. This time it’s a clear order and he does his best to listen. Orders are what he knows after all.

Something is tucked around him. It’s so steeped in nephilim magic that he arches into the feel of it and groans in pleasure at how safe he feels.

He’s warm. 

_Finally._

He’s picked up, wrapped in softness and safety and he presses his face to a warm neck, breathing in a scent he doesn’t recognize, but already knows he loves. 

—

Magnus has never met a nephilim quite like the one lying stretched out on Edom’s sand.

The first and most surprising fact is that he’s still alive. 

Secondly, he’s absolutely gorgeous and he’s such a sweet thing, gentling at Magnus’ touch and listening so well. Magnus knows that’s not nephilim instinct nor is it nurtured into them as nephilim grow into shadowhunters. 

He watched from afar at first. Admiring the shadowhunter who ventured alone into his father’s realm. He surveyed as the shadowhunter fought, was pushed back and injured only to stagger up and continue fighting.

He rescued him on a whim, but he regrets none of it. 

He unclasps his cloak and wraps it around his prize. The cloak is a thing of magical beauty and the reward of countless battles. It’s an ageless trophy and considered a prize of Edom. One of the royal jewels so to speak. Once it was his greatest treasure, but he thinks that perhaps, he’s found a new one. 

—

_ Alec nuzzles into the soft warmth, groaning a little when he’s bundled even closer. It almost feels as though he’s clasped in the wings of another. Which is rare, and also impossible. Though at the moment, he can’t quite remember why.  _

_ — _

The palace is deserted for the moment, with Magnus’ father elsewhere for the unforeseeable future. He takes the nephilim to his own bed, uses magic to strip him bare and clean him until he’s dressed in nothing but Magnus’ cloak. 

He’s even more beautiful clean and bare with Magnus’ magic twining around him, healing him. And while Magnus travels to other realms as often as he wishes to sate his desires, he’s never felt more hungry to touch and taste than he has at this moment. He remembers that moment, on the plains and he coats his fingers with magic. Lets the royal flush of Edom’s magic blend his natural blue to purple and strokes two fingers over healed, plush lips. They part, just as easily as they had the first time and kiss his fingers unconsciously. A tongue kitten licks at the tips of his fingers and when he presses deeper his prizes mouth closes around his fingers, suckling greedily, swallowing down his magic as if it’s the purest of mountain waters. 

Nothing is pure in Edom, except perhaps this nephilim in his bed, but in that moment Magnus imagines he must feel as the angels do. An exalted, worshiped being.

When he finally pulls his hand away, the nephilim chases him unconsciously. A pout on his sleeping face as he turns towards Magnus’ warmth. He allows it, exchanging his battle leathers for a silk robe with a snap of his fingers as he settles against the headboard of his bed and pulls the nephilim between the cradle of his legs. 

His treasure settles instantly, face pressed to Magnus’ stomach and an arm twining around Magnus’ thigh, as though he finally feels secure. As though for the first time since he arrived in Edom, he is _safe._

With that in mind, Magnus strokes soft, dark curls and begins to plot. There had to be a reason for a treasure such as this to be so callously discarded and Magnus will root it out. He will find whatever wound the Clave left on his nephilim and he will poison it. He will rot him from the inside out, until even if he was able to return to the world above, he wouldn’t want to, unless it was by Magnus’ side.

Magnus is not letting him go, even if he has to clip his wings to make sure of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Two of my favorite personal headcanons are that when nephilim have wings, there is a transformative stage when they become shadowhunters where they can turn their wings into ones made of adamas. they can be shields against magic and attacks, or weapons. 
> 
> the second, is than in a different darker universe where Magnus is a Prince of Hell in more than just name, he collects the prettiest and most powerful of those wings and uses the feathers to craft himself a cloak of them. and yes, Magnus is eventually going to fuck him on that cloak ^_^ so don't like don't read, but if you do like. enjoy and feel free to let me knows if i've missed any tags.
> 
> I'm on tumblr as [alexanderlightweight](https://alexanderlightweight.tumblr.com)


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